


Smiling through the Apocalypse

by annabeth_at_the_helm



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cheating, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 19:45:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14838032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annabeth_at_the_helm/pseuds/annabeth_at_the_helm
Summary: BJ considers Hawkeye and his feelings, past and present.





	Smiling through the Apocalypse

**Author's Note:**

> /emphasis/; [lyrics]; I’m answering my own “lyrics challenge”

[You’ve got such a pretty smile  
It’s a shame the things you hide behind it...]

Perhaps it’s getting to you, the same way it’s been getting to all of us. The constant tension, the way death blankets the air, the smell of life so distant, so surreal.

I’ve been watching you, Hawkeye. I think I know what it is you’re hiding. I won’t tell, of course, since it’s not necessary.

No one really needs to know.

But sometimes, when it’s late at night, and the choppers aren’t flying it’s silent enough that I hear you whispering.

The sound is so soft I can’t make out if you’re speaking words; maybe you’re whimpering in your sleep. 

Once or twice I could’ve sworn I heard tears tinging that beautiful, distinctive voice of yours.

In the day, when the wounded are flowing into the compound like blood flows in the O.R., I watch you. I watch you closely.

Blue eyes that are too bright, cloudless -- they should be shadowed. You should be as affected as the rest of us.

And you are; I can feel it. You dip your head down when you’re worried, crack an inappropriate joke, proposition the nurses.

You’re holding it down so deep inside -- if you press down hard enough maybe you can put a clamp on your soul.

But I don’t think so.

You have such a warm face, Hawkeye. My wife would adore you -- she’d invite you in, offer you coffee, ask how your gin still is -- but even more so than me she’d know right away.

She would know why you hide your face when I try to study you. She’d understand why you never let yourself be alone with me for long, unless it’s in a public place. She would see right through the clear, invisible barrier that guards you from the world.

I wish she were here, right now, so that she could enlighten me. Because I think I know. I think I can guess why you’re so quick with comebacks, why you have such furtive eyes sometimes.

I know this war is grinding my soul into the dust. I look at you and I want to know /why/ you haven’t cracked yet, why you aren’t crying, why I’m not /screaming/--

Late, late night when you snuffle into your olive blankets -- if they can be called that -- I tiptoe over and adjust them around you. I touch your hair if I can, maybe to make sure you’re still here, perhaps to be certain that you exist. Not just some changeling from another world.

I do love you. It goes against everything in me to let you suffer. To watch you slowly crumble, but not visibly -- to realize that I’m the only one left who knows you well enough to know when you’re falling to pieces a bit of shrapnel at a time.

I know you call out to him in your sleep, and I know that wherever he is he must love you. How could he not?

Drown your sorrows in your gin, Hawkeye. Keep those eyes clear of anything too real.

But -- if you ever need to collapse, to crash and burn -- I’ll be here, one cot over.

I reach out for Peg and my fingers kiss your hair. And then I’m not sure what I feel anymore.

~end~

**Author's Note:**

> Col Bloodworth: Don’t you ever stop with the wisecracks?  
> Hawkeye: Only long enough to make a joke.  
> Col Bloodworth: Oh, boy, you’re a pistol.   
> Hawkeye: I spent the last forty-eight hours digging pieces of Hill 403 out of kids whose biggest worry a week ago was how to cover a hickey. Joking about it is the only way of opening my mouth without screaming.  
> Col. Bloodworth: I know. I’ve spent the last forty-eight hours watching you.  
> (from ‘The Grim Reaper;’ some portions omitted)


End file.
